The usual way to school on a usual morning: He and Miyuki left the station, met up with their friends, and headed for school. One member had been missing since the new year and another since the middle of last week, but aside from that, this morning looked the same as they had since last spring.

This morning, however, a very unusual event was waiting for Tatsuya. Before they met up with their friends, when they were still at the ticket gate, an upperclassman called out to him. Both he and Miyuki had noticed her there before she said anything.

This station was mainly used by First High students or related people at this time of day. Unlike with the high-capacity trains of old, you wouldn’t see dense crowds of passengers coming off the platforms very often in stations these days. Nevertheless, the siblings walked over to where Mayumi was standing near the wall so they wouldn’t get in the way of the students flooding out as class time approached.

No few students cast glances their way, but none of them seemed to care much. It wasn’t strange for the former student council president to be standing and talking to the current vice president, and it was widely assumed at First High that the current vice president’s older brother was a favorite of the former student council president—including in a gossipy way.

The reality was, of course, nothing that would meet their expectations. Rather than walking to school with her, the siblings left the ticket gates ahead of her. Mayumi only had one thing to say: to meet her in the crossfield club’s second room after school.

The crossfield club (a club dedicated to a survival game using magic tactics) was the club Katsuto belonged to. There was a tacit understanding at First High that the club committee used its second club room as an unofficial meeting place, and many were aware that Katsuto used it for private matters even after retiring from the club. As expected, when Tatsuya arrived, Mayumi and Katsuto were waiting for him.

“Alone?”

Surprise rolled off of not only Katsuto, who asked the question, but Mayumi as well.

“Yes, since I was the only one called here.”

In truth, Miyuki had firmly insisted on going with him, but he’d managed to wheedle her out of it—going with her to a cake buffet on his dime would be a small price to pay.

Whatever the reason, Tatsuya had indeed come by himself. Technically, Mayumi had only summoned him, but she hadn’t predicted Miyuki wouldn’t come, too. But without wasting time on that, she got right to the main topic.

“Tatsuya, did you go out last night?”

She led off with one of the several questions Tatsuya had imagined. “Yes, I did,” he politely admitted, instead of the more typical So what? of people his age.

“On a motorcycle?”

“Yes.”

People got talkative when they wanted to fool someone. Right now, Tatsuya had no motive to deceive with loquaciousness.

“…Will you tell me where you went?”

Mayumi, on the other hand, seemed to be having trouble deciding where to take the conversation. She didn’t seem to have enough deviousness or experience in feeling someone out. Katsuto, standing quietly beside her, didn’t seem cut out for the job, either.

“Yoshida called me while in combat with the vampire. They were fighting the individual there, as well as an unknown magician who was probably chasing the vampire.”

This seems like it’ll take a while, thought Tatsuya, deciding to push the conversation forward. Mayumi blinked in surprise as he directed an unreadable gaze at her. Even an adult with a bigger wealth of experience—her father, for example—probably would have had a hard time reading his thoughts.

She didn’t know what he was thinking.

And that thought stirred unease within her, shook her psychological defenses.

“Since what time?” inquired Katsuto suddenly, maybe throwing Mayumi a life raft, maybe not.

“I only drove there because they called me yesterday. I wasn’t part of the vampire search,” answered Tatsuya, supplying even what wasn’t asked to the question that cut out all sorts of things, like who and what. It didn’t matter what Katsuto and Mayumi thought—Tatsuya had no intention of playing this game of scoping each other out right now.

“You two know that Saijou in Class 1-E was attacked, right?”

There was no universe in which they wouldn’t have known. This wasn’t a question, but a verification. The answer he got back was, of course, affirmative.

“I’m not the only one who wants to know what in the world is going on. We can’t feel safe at all until we’ve found the criminal, handed them over, and put an end to it. I’m sure you can’t tolerate the curtains closing before even knowing whether there’s just one perpetrator, multiple, or whether it’s an infectious crime, right?”

He was talking to both of them, but now he turned his gaze to Mayumi in particular. “Unless you tell me how much of the situation you understand and how you plan on solving it, I can’t very well cooperate.”

Though her initiative had been stolen, she seemed to rally her nerves. After a sigh, her false smile disappeared. “If you promise you’ll help us, Tatsuya, I’ll tell you what we know so far,” she said. “But no telling anyone else. I’m sure you know that.”

“Understood. I’ll help you.” Tatsuya nodded without a moment’s delay.

That was the answer she’d hoped for, but since she couldn’t figure out his true intentions, her eyes narrowed at him inquisitively. “…Does that mean you’ll join our search team?”

“You may take it as such if you wish.”

“Why this, all of a sudden? You must have seen the notification from the Clans Council.”

Those were Katsuto’s words. After the Saegusa and Juumonji had created their joint vampire-hunting team, a notification requesting assistance had gone out from the Clans Council to the leaders of the Ten Master Clans, the Eighteen Support Clans, and the Hundred Families. No high school student would have laid eyes on it if they weren’t a direct descendant of one of the Numbers, but Katsuto spoke as though Tatsuya had, in fact, read the Clans Council notification through some means.

“As someone who isn’t even part of the Hundred, I didn’t think there was any room for me.”

And Tatsuya didn’t hide the fact that he’d seen the notification. Notifications from the council weren’t designated confidential, so they weren’t actually that hard to get your hands on.

“If I’d been personally requested, things would have been different, though.”

His answer reeked of feigned ignorance. But as a facade, though it wasn’t perfect, it left no room for complaints, and nothing in particular stood out as strange. Thus, Mayumi and Katsuto, regardless of whatever they were actually thinking, had no choice but to agree in form.

Because, after all, even before the sums of their experience came into play, Tatsuya already had a meaner personality than either of them.

“…But are you sure? Didn’t you say your condition was that I share information before you’d cooperate?”

“One of us has to yield, or the conversation wouldn’t get anywhere. What? If I decided you’d tricked me, I’d simply change my attitude.”

At the too-honest words—or words that looked too honest, but might have actually had something behind them, then something behind that, and then behind that again—Mayumi let out a dry laugh. She’d been the one to bring up this confidential talk, but she already felt like getting it over with quick.

“Great. I’ll explain everything we know at this stage. But before that, can I say something?”

“What is it?”

“You really are an awful person.”

“……”

There were three bits in the information Mayumi gave that were altogether new for Tatsuya.

One was the scope of the damage. It greatly exceeded Tatsuya’s predictions, but that didn’t seem all that vital.

The second was that the crimes didn’t seem to be the work of a single criminal. Tatsuya had considered accomplices, too, but the possibility of there being more than one vampire was unexpected.

And third was the presence of a third faction obstructing Mayumi and Katsuto’s search. At first, when she said obstructing faction, Tatsuya’s mind had leaped to Erika and Mikihiko. But after hearing the specifics, he learned it was an entirely separate group.

The second and third pieces of info worried even him. That masked magician probably belonged to the group impeding their search. And he had a pretty certain guess as to her identity.

But he didn’t know her motive. He got the feeling that once he knew, it would all be very simple, but that just made it more annoying.

“What do you two plan to do when you capture the vampires?”

Avoiding the foolish act of wandering into a dark alley in his thoughts, Tatsuya pulled his mind back to the topic. He’d said he’d cooperate, and even if it was only a surface-level promise, he couldn’t neglect to find out their endgame.

“We’ll interrogate them and learn their identities and goals. After that…”

“They’ll probably be dealt with,” said Katsuto, filling in for what Mayumi was having a hard time saying.

I mean… Tatsuya didn’t want to hear a female high school student throwing around terms like dealing with, either, so he didn’t consider her naive.

And their solution didn’t insist on humaneness; it was one Tatsuya could understand, both practically and emotionally.

“…Understood. What should I do?”

“Would you mind coming along with us? Starting tonight, if possible—”

“No, Shiba, you move on your own. I’d like you to report any clues you might come up with.”

Mayumi stared at Katsuto as he cut off her instructions. Her gaze held no displeasure, but there was enough suspicion to make up for it.

“I understand.”

In all honesty, it would have been easier for Tatsuya to do what Mayumi said. Of course, he had no intention of seriously keeping his promise to cooperate with them, which was why he could agree without hesitation to Katsuto’s proposition.

Without revealing the cards in his own hand and having heard everything he wanted to hear for himself, he left them.

Once Tatsuya’s footsteps had gone out of earshot (concealed microphones for detecting spies’ movements were set up around the room), Mayumi opened her mouth.

“Juumonji, why did you tell Tatsuya to act separately?” Her tone wasn’t criticizing, but she was unconvinced.

“I thought it would be more efficient,” answered Katsuto.

She couldn’t feel a lack of confidence from him. “But that could mean giving him to the Chiba.”

Mayumi also knew that Erika’s group had disobeyed the notification and was acting on its own. The Saegusa might have been a leader in the Ten Master Clans, but they weren’t rulers, so they couldn’t easily force the Chiba to stop, nor could they levy any penalties on them. But in a situation where a foreign faction was peeking through the shadows, letting them run about on their own was an inconvenient bother. Her true position was that even if they couldn’t do anything about the combination of Erika Chiba and Mikihiko Yoshida, she at least wanted to get the Shiba siblings on their side.

“If we hadn’t told him the truth, it’s possible that could have happened,” Katsuto muttered. He shook his head, implying that it wasn’t a current concern. “But now that we’ve shown him our sincerity, he won’t betray us. That’s the kind of man he is.”

“…A thoroughly give-and-take relationship, huh? That’s a weird form of trust.”

“Even the loyalty of a samurai, at its roots, was about goodwill and service—give and take. I personally think we can trust him much more than someone who was blindly obedient.”

“…At the root of absolute loyalty lies dependence, after all. We can’t expect that from Tatsuya. And it wouldn’t make sense for him anyway.”

Katsuto nodded. Mayumi nodded back, convinced.

At this stage, he’d have to be satisfied with putting pieces of the puzzle together even if he knew he was missing a crucial piece. While once again mentally searching through the information he’d acquired thus far, Tatsuya hurried to the student council room, where Miyuki was waiting for him.

It was still light out. But of course it was—today was Saturday. School had ended, but noon had only just passed. He was hurrying not because they were going to be late getting home, but because they were going to be late for lunch.

Miyuki would never eat without waiting for him. Maybe she would if he had carefully instructed (ordered?) her to, but he didn’t think he’d be that late today, so he hadn’t. He hadn’t actually made her wait very long, but knowing he was making his little sister wait was enough to put pressure on even Tatsuya.

Birds of a feather, one might call the two of them.

Putting his physical abilities to use, he dashed up the stairs two at a time and went to the student council room. When he got there, the door was open, as though it were waiting for him.

The first thing that came into view was a golden radiance.

At almost the same time, Tatsuya stepped to the side and Lina hid behind the door. They both waited, the door between them for the other to walk past. Tatsuya’s lips pulled up a little at how ridiculous he must have looked, and then he went through the doorway, the one barring (?) the way gone.

He was purposely ignoring the concept of “ladies first” while making sure not to ignore the lady herself.

“Hey, Lina. How are you doing?” he asked, turning to her as he passed, lightly tapping her right shoulder.

“Hi, Tatsuya. I’m great. Thanks.”

Despite the sudden physical contact, she didn’t complain of sexual harassment. Her answer was given without a single wrinkle in her brow but with a smile, and as if in exchange, she patted Tatsuya’s shoulder twice and left.

Tatsuya waved down Miyuki and Honoka—they’d stood up happily upon seeing him—and took a seat at the table (on a chair at the table, actually) which he couldn’t quite decide whether to call a conference table or not. He obviously didn’t want to give much thought to its having been purchased so student council members could use it to dine and take tea breaks.

Azusa and Isori were nowhere to be found. He couldn’t have criticized them even if they were here, but he was still more comfortable without them. Not because upperclassmen being in the same room made him nervous, but because he’d have to take them into consideration. Azusa, especially, would look frightened as soon as the slightest thing happened (or so Tatsuya figured).

Mayumi’s summons had been completely unexpected, so they hadn’t prepared their own lunches. Of course, if someone suddenly said “I thought this might happen,” he’d doubtless be less impressed and more scared. Knowing a lot would be sold out already, there would be no lack of fuss going to the cafeteria now, so they decided to make use of the dining server in the student council room for the first time in a while.

Honoka used the cooking panel to prepare a drink for Miyuki. Tatsuya’s job was to stay put and let himself be waited on… Looking at him objectively would have made him an object of envy, but he cut off that unproductive idea before it made it to his conscious mind.

“What was Lina here for, by the way?” he asked, instead going with the thought that did come to mind.

“The school suggested that Lina could possibly be a temporary student council member for the length of her study-abroad program,” answered Miyuki as she placed a coffee cup in front of him and leaned over to the side to look at him.

Her straight black hair flowed down like a waterfall before his eyes. His eyes stolen by how she combed it back behind her, he put together the information that had come in via his ears.

“Oh… Come to think of it, you mentioned she hadn’t decided on a club yet, and you smelled trouble.”

“Yes. It looks like the recruitment wars are growing quite severe below the surface… Apparently, Chairman Hattori was the one to propose Lina’s position on the council.”

That answer came from Honoka as she brought over a tray with steaming plates on it. She made a U-turn, then they both went around the table, took their own trays, and started eating.

“Her program ends after one school term, so she obviously couldn’t join an athletic club,” agreed Tatsuya.

“People seem to have a different ulterior motive,” offered Miyuki, giving a slightly mean smile. “Apparently some people had the ridiculous plan of making a photo collection of her and selling it.”

Honoka frowned and sighed. “Do we even have a photography club?”

It wouldn’t be strange to have a club like that, but Tatsuya couldn’t remember one existing.

“It was the photography team of the art club. Their idea, dull as it is, is to have her join the light gymnastics club and take pictures of her doing that.”

Light gymnastics was a magicians-only gymnastics event performed with lowered gravity and inertia. In floor programs, you’d end up doing a trampoline-like performance without using a trampoline. Mirage Bat, which Miyuki and Honoka had competed in, was one of its extensions.

“I see…” Tatsuya murmured. “That would probably paint a nice picture.”

“Um, Brother?”

“Though I’m not sure about them selling it.”

“……”

Miyuki looked at him dubiously. Tatsuya looked in the other direction.

He got the same stare in that direction, too.

“…Sorry. I didn’t say that properly,” he said, looking back at his sister and holding aloft the white flag. If it came to a staring contest with his enthusiastic gaze, the two girls would more than likely be the first to break, but he’d figured using their feelings for something so petty would be incredibly uncool.

Meanwhile, Miyuki knew Tatsuya had no rude intentions, which meant that when humbled like this, she couldn’t refrain from feeling awkward and casting her eyes down.

“A-anyway, I’ve heard similar things here and there, and it’s not only Lina—the fires might start spreading to people who have nothing to do with recruitment, too, and, um…”

Honoka showed panic at the strange mood. Despite having an opinionated side to her, she was basically a person with delicate sensibilities (also called timid).

“And they thought the student council would be a good fit,” remarked Tatsuya, immediately understanding her consideration.

“Yes,” followed Miyuki without a moment’s delay. “All the other clubs should give up if she refuses even student council work.”

Seeing the strange air drifting between the siblings swept away, Honoka breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately (?) for her, she was far from the type of girl devious enough to take advantage of them fighting.

“What did Lina think about it?”

“She didn’t seem very happy with the idea,” answered Miyuki.

“I don’t think she wanted to give up her time after school,” said Honoka. “I thought maybe that was why she hasn’t decided on a club yet, despite all the eager invitations.”

Tatsuya nodded, looking convinced.

After their weekend dinner, Tatsuya sat on the living room sofa watching the large screen on the wall.

Next to him, Miyuki sat so close she was almost snuggling up with him.

The screen was divided in three. The main section showed a real-time video feed of the Tokyo metropolitan area from the stratospheric security cameras, with three different points of light moving atop it. The upper subsection had a road map corresponding to the main section and lights moving on it, while the lower subsection displayed text data that scrolled by every thirty seconds.

It was thanks to Captain Sanada that he could use the surveillance cameras on the stratospheric platform. And it was because of the once-in-a-generation hacker Kyouko Fujibayashi’s job that he could monitor the tracer signals from the Saegusa-Juumonji family federation, not because he’d squeezed the authentication codes out of Mayumi. Fujibayashi was also the one who had picked out the Chiba search team’s signal.

The luminous point thought to be the interfering faction was generated with constant analysis by the Independent Magic Battalion’s supercomputer of the electric waves being detected by the interception and monitoring radios aboard the stratospheric platform.

From his long relationship with the Independent Magic Battalion, Tatsuya had had a vague understanding that the experimental magic force was also an experimental cutting-edge tech force (if not, they couldn’t have built the MOVAL suits), but once again, he felt like he’d been blindsided by their exceptional capabilities.

And in terms of technology…

“The Stars seem to have better tech than us searching for the parasite,” muttered Tatsuya, impressed, deciding the interfering faction was the Stars and watching them move.

They couldn’t directly pinpoint the parasite’s movements, but they could approximate them by analyzing the routes of the three factions looking for the vampire. And the moving light designated as the Stars, despite not being able to use the roadside cameras and their sensors or the measurement devices on the stratospheric platform, seemed to be tracing the parasite’s motions the quickest. Tatsuya couldn’t tell if it was a spell they didn’t know of or more advanced technology. He also had no way of knowing whether the parasite was the only thing the Stars could trace or whether it could isolate other magical signals as well. The one thing he could say for sure was that the USNA was ahead of Japan in this field.

He’d never believed Japan’s magic technology was on the forefront of the world to begin with. He also wasn’t conceited enough to think they possessed every kind of tech. Still, he found it hard to suppress his chagrin and his earnest desire to seek answers.

“But now isn’t the time for that,” he said, cutting off those unneeded thoughts and rising from the sofa’s backrest.

“Are you going, Brother?” asked Miyuki, watching the now-standing Tatsuya from the sofa with a pained look.

“Be good and wait here for me.” Tatsuya’s palm stroked Miyuki’s cheek.

She put her own hand over his and pressed his palm to her cheek, almost as if making sure he was still alive. “I will await your return tonight.”

“Yeah. Before long, I’ll definitely need your strength. When the time comes—”

“Yes. When the time comes, we’ll do it together. That’s a promise, Brother.”

“…Well, I don’t think it’ll be as dangerous as Yokohama was anyway,” he said a little jokingly. Miyuki released his hand with a smile.

Tatsuya had more than just his favorite CAD. As he headed for the conflict with various other pieces of equipment, his sister saw him off at the front door.

She stared at the closed door until she could no longer feel her brother’s presence.

And as that presence grew more distant, once her senses could no longer get a clear read on his location, she turned around sharply.

Not a vestige of loneliness was left on her face. In her tightly drawn expression were large eyes giving off strong light.

She returned to the living room and turned on the switch for the large, darkened screen. She wasn’t wholly incompetent when it came to machines, but if one were to categorize her as either skilled or unskilled, she would definitely fall into the latter category.

But she was gifted with a good memory. Not as good as Tatsuya’s, who could freely control his memory functions as a side effect of his mind being altered, but reproducing the procedure she’d watched him use presented her with no difficulty.

She called up the screens she’d just been watching with her brother. The scroll speed for the text data was a little too fast for her, but she wasn’t skilled enough to change the settings, so she would put up with it.

As she watched the points of light move around, she desperately tried to deduce her brother’s whereabouts. He’d told her to wait patiently, but just for today, she didn’t intend to simply wait. Even if the result was that she went against his order, even if it earned her a scolding later, it was better than doing nothing but watch him get hurt.

And there wasn’t a large-scale armed clash happening today. In that sense, one could say it was less dangerous than Yokohama had been.

But even if the scale was small…

Even if any armed action would meet with heavy restrictions…

His enemy would probably be that Stars member.

Even still, there wasn’t much Miyuki could do.

On a personal level, she already possessed one of the highest magical power levels in Japan, even at only fifteen. In fact, perhaps her power level was one of the highest in the world.

But her strengths didn’t include precognition or clairvoyance.

She didn’t yet have the right to move the Yotsuba’s forces.

She didn’t have a personally built network like Tatsuya.

She didn’t have hacking skills like Fujibayashi.

Miyuki had none of the special magic, organizational capacity, or expertise needed to search out her brother. With her eyes still on the screen, she put a hand to her chest.

It was an unconscious act.

At her chest’s center, above her heart. She couldn’t feel her pulse with her clothing in the way, but in exchange, she could feel something else.

Deep in her chest, near her heart…

…she felt her connection to Tatsuya.

The detestable shackles bound to her brother.

The reset limiter.

The chains and the lock were both with her.

As was the key.

A curse-like secret art that constrained her even as it constrained her brother.

But it was a definite link tying her to him.

If only I could see, too

Such were her thoughts.

No matter how far away Tatsuya was, he could always see her, understand her. Tatsuya’s “vision” could analyze everything about an existence, and she’d heard he could perceive her location and situation.

That meant she had no privacy whatsoever, but Miyuki didn’t find that disagreeable in the slightest.

After all, there wasn’t a single thing she had to keep a secret from him.

In fact, she wanted him to use his power to read even her innermost feelings, the ones she couldn’t say herself. Even knowing his sight didn’t work up to the dimension of the mind, she still wanted it.

On the other hand, Miyuki didn’t have the power to “see” someone far away.

Instead, equipped with her inborn mental interference-type magic, she possessed a special haptic perception—a sense of “touch”—that could detect the whereabouts of a mind. If she released the limiters on Tatsuya and thus released her own unusual ability, she could “touch” another person’s mind. She might even be able to touch individual souls drifting through the world if she felt like it.

But she couldn’t feel a faraway person’s “presence.” She couldn’t penetrate physical distance—which didn’t exist in the information dimension—as something nonexistent like her brother could.

That was, indeed, the difference between visual and haptic perception. With a sense of touch, she could feel things that she was told were there, but she couldn’t find things she didn’t know the location of.

Feeling her brother in her chest, which only tantalized her more, she tried hard to infer the answer.

Struck by an ominous, inexplicable premonition, and wishing she could run to her brother.

How long did she stare at the screen like that?

Suddenly, the doorbell rang to announce a visitor.

She came to and looked at the clock.

Good, I’ll send them away, she thought. In other words, if she pretended not to be home, nobody could blame her. It was too late for people to be visiting others’ houses.

She looked at the door phone’s monitor. When she saw the visitor, she immediately changed her plan. Choosing a change of clothes in her mind, she calculated how long she’d need.

“Would you mind waiting a few moments, please, Sensei?”

The visitor was Yakumo.

Tatsuya watched the battle between the parasite and the masked magician from the trees.

He’d arrived at this park three minutes before the fighting started. When he confirmed that his estimate of where the altercation would occur was right on the money, he smiled without thinking, but right now he was holding his breath, watching for the right moment to jump in.

According to Mayumi, there were multiple vampires, and multiple hunters chasing them. Now, though, the ones fighting were the same two from yesterday. All he’d done was look at how the groups were moving and predicted where the initial fight would break out; he hadn’t figured out where, exactly, the specimen would show up.

…This is a coincidence, right?

A shiver squirmed up his spine, threatening to give him away. He managed to stamp it out right before that happened, however. If you’re telling me this is fate, then she’s got terrible taste.

He checked on the battle again. The masked magician was clearly the one on the offensive. The white-masked one thought to be the vampire was looking for an opportunity to flee. And the encirclement to block her escape route was still incomplete.

Four people. Just as predicted. Still, not much.

As the three factions—four, if you counted the police units who weren’t cooperating with the Saegusa—played a complex game of checks and feints with one another, four magicians were closing in on this location from four different directions. Given that they were the away team without access to the roadside surveillance devices, he was surprised they could get four people here without the other factions noticing. Still, surveillance wasn’t enough to quash all the escape routes in the city, which stretched upward, too.

Probably why this was a game of tag rather than hide-and-seek, but…

The enemy of my enemy is, in the end, a complete stranger. Guess it doesn’t always mean they’re my friend.

If all the factions chasing the parasite joined forces, with so many people from each team, it would be a simple matter to chase her down. Their different views wouldn’t let that happen, though. Personally speaking, his own goals weren’t perfectly aligned with Mayumi’s or Erika’s, either.

But for now, the vampire was the enemy here.

Anyway, how should I do this?

While predicting several responses from the masked magician, Tatsuya drew not his CAD but his gun from behind his waist. It was an illegal carry, of course, but he certainly wasn’t about to worry about that now. As the vampire evaded a knife strike and made a big leap, he, in perfectly natural fashion, aimed roughly for her stomach and offhandedly pulled the trigger.

His handgun’s average effective firing range was fifty yards, with its effective range in actual combat being twenty yards and closer. These details hadn’t changed since the previous century. The weapons were made to fulfill a specific need, after all.

The distance between the trees Tatsuya was hiding under and the mystery woman in the long coat was about ten yards. Though he’d put in more than the bare minimum training time with handguns, he didn’t exactly practice daily, so it was hard to get the exact right aim at this distance.

The gun in his hand was a break-action single loader due to a peculiarity of the bullet—which meant this was a one-shot showdown with no do-overs. He would have preferred to aim for a spot where the skin was exposed, but he couldn’t, so he had to give up on that.

His opponent was wearing a hat pulled low over her face and a long coat that went down to her ankles, and her face was covered with an entirely white mask, an outfit that left virtually no exposed skin to begin with. Still, he needn’t have worried about it.

The suppressor absorbed almost all of the heavy, low-speed bullet’s discharge sound. The bullet caught the middle of the coat, just where he’d aimed. With twice the weight of a 9mm bullet making up for its lack of speed, it toppled the vampire over backward.

The masked magician looked in Tatsuya’s direction. Her golden eyes held a fierce, penetrating light.

The light of unmistakable hostility.

She tossed aside her knife, and Tatsuya let go of his gun at the same time.

Her hand reached behind her, and his reached into his clothes.

Tatsuya was the first to finish drawing.

But when his finger was about to pull the CAD’s trigger, it stopped halfway.

His opponent gripped a midsize automatic pistol. His vision told him a magic program was formed on its barrel.

Its activation speed rivaled that of Tatsuya’s dismantling magic. Just holding the single-use armament device would expand an activation sequence, and because she didn’t need to press a button, she’d gotten ahead of him.

The spell that was triggered was Information Boost, which strengthened a bullet’s attributes as it traveled through the barrel.

Tatsuya used his CAD’s selector to switch activation sequences from an eidos-dismantling spell to a body-dismantling one.

He aimed for the chamber of the gun the masked magician gripped. The bullet fired from it.

Their temporal perceptions quickened, a side effect of the high-density information processing from using magic. As he watched the masked magician squeeze her trigger, Tatsuya pulled his CAD’s.

About fifteen yards separated them. She, too, was using a suppressor, giving her subsonic bullet a low-noise effect, but even so, it would take less than 0.05 seconds to hit its target.

It was synonymous with instant.

But the time it took for the Information Boost to affect the bullet was even shorter.

The bullet’s attribute information had been strengthened, including its velocity, in the blink of an eye, but in the middle of its flight, it broke into small pieces.

A sense of shock leaked from behind the mask.

Her confidence is well placed, thought Tatsuya. Normally, he couldn’t have blocked that bullet by stopping it or altering its vector. Maybe he could have if he’d had Katsuto’s level of skill, but normal magicians would find it impossible. Even active combat units in the Ten Master Clans would have had trouble with it.

In fact, Tatsuya had only been able to deal with it because dismantling spells were effective against Information Boost. If they weren’t, he wouldn’t have had a solution for it, and would have had a very difficult time blocking Information Boost on sight.

But that was a hypothetical situation. In reality, the masked magician was exposing a clear opportunity to Tatsuya.

He shot a spell at the same exact time that his mind acknowledged an opening.

The spell he’d tried to fire initially would pick off the masked magician this time.

Eidos describing color, shape, sound, heat, and position were reflected in his vision. Rather than his opponent’s actual body, his anti-magic spell Program Dispersion targeted the camouflage spell itself.

When his spell dismantled the very magic program, the empty, costume-like outer coating tore off in every direction.

—A moment later…

…the demon was reborn as an angel.

The night scene turned into stars and flowed past. Inside a motor sedan driving, almost sliding, over a metropolitan highway, they could see the outside scenery as a 3-D image, but no sounds or vibrations made it in.

From the quiet cabin’s back seat, Miyuki hesitantly spoke. “…Sensei?”

The question was for the ninjutsu user sitting next to her: Yakumo Kokonoe.

“Hm? What is it?” he said, opening his eyes and turning to her.

“Why…might you be helping me right now? I recall that any contact with the outside world is admonished.”

Self-discipline, or strict adherence. They meant different things, but the effects were the same. And the restrictions Yakumo had imposed on himself were both.

“There are actually a couple little reasons.” His tone was as detached as it always was, so Miyuki had a hard time seeing through to his thoughts. “I became a priest and renounced the world, but I didn’t renounce the shinobi arts. This problem goes beyond me.”

Not that he couldn’t renounce them—but that he hadn’t. Miyuki couldn’t sense any strain or despair in that; it was a completely regular part of Yakumo… At least, that’s how it looked to her.

“There are also the duties, the responsibilities of those who inherit those skills… This might also be an extremely worldly affair, but even the priesthood can’t stay detached from authority and tradition. I think this is allowed, don’t you?”

Miyuki had no way to answer that. No matter who she was, it wasn’t something you asked a fifteen-year-old girl.

“Mm…” she said. It was the most she could do, and appropriate. She thought she felt Yakumo’s disciple scowl in the driver’s seat, but it might have been her imagination.

“I actually heard from Kazama that Tatsuya’s enemy might be using the Kudou’s Parade spell. If that’s true, I need to give a stern warning to the caster—in the place of my own predecessor, who taught them Cocoon, the spell that forms the basis for Parade.

“It’s such a pain,” he grumbled. But those imprudent words didn’t make it to Miyuki’s ears.

“Sensei, your master taught the Kudou family the original version of their secret spell, Parade?”

If it had been Tatsuya, he might have thought, I see, I suppose that kind of thing can happen and swallowed the whole thing up, but it was a fact that Miyuki couldn’t help but repeat aloud.

“Wait, you didn’t know that? Lab Nine’s mission statement is to develop magicians with rationalized, resystematized old magic packaged as modern magic. They gathered a lot of old-magic casters together for it. My predecessor was one of them.”

Miyuki hadn’t known that, of course.

In fact, thinking a high school student would know about the magic technician development laboratories, half of which were sealed up as part of the dark side of modern magic, was incorrect. Even if she had been in a position to inherit the products of the most infamous one, Lab Four, she wouldn’t have known what was going on in the other ones.

Suddenly, she gasped and gazed at him in pale wonderment. “Then, Sensei, your last name…”

“No, you’re thinking too hard,” he said, waving a hand and grinning drily. He must have known exactly what her question was. “The surname Kokonoe, ‘of the imperial court’ and more literally ‘ninefold,’ is something I inherited from my predecessor.”

The air in the vehicle softened a bit. But the temperature soon plummeted again:

“Anyway, that was how my predecessor taught Cocoon to the Kudou, and they improved it into Parade. There are mysteries in it that we normally never should have let outside our gates. If the magician involved with Tatsuya is using it, I need to warn them not to spread it any further. If they don’t listen, then, unfortunately…”

Yakumo’s tone and expression were still just as detached as always, but Miyuki felt a chill run up her spine. It wasn’t just her, either—his disciple’s shoulders stiffened as he gripped the steering wheel.

A demon into an angel. A trite notion, but the change was vivid enough to call it to Tatsuya’s mind.

Her crimson hair, reminiscent of a dark abyss—into a gold that glittered under even the weakest of streetlights.

Her ominous golden eyes—the color changed to a clear, azure blue.

Her jawline softened, and her features grew more delicate.

Even her height seemed to slightly decrease. Or had she simply appeared taller until now?

This beauty was nothing a tiny little mask could conceal.

I see, thought Tatsuya. If she could even make her body type different, it made sense that she’d been able to blind eyes around the world. If not for the piles of data he’d accumulated, even he probably wouldn’t have known.

Without his realizing it, his hands and mind were moving. Five bullets were fired in succession from the brilliantly blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl’s hand. All of them were reduced to dust before reaching him.

Right before the seventh shot was fired, the slide flew off the handgun and the barrel broke away.

The masked girl halted. Her gun’s attack had been stopped. More importantly, the device she was using had been destroyed by magic. It was impossible.

“Lina, stop! I don’t want to be your enemy!”

Taking advantage of her shock, Tatsuya attempted to change the situation. His goal today was to apprehend the parasite—the woman—and then find out her identity. That was why he’d gone through all the trouble of procuring an anesthetic bullet with a complicated gimmick—launching a needle when it hit the target—and this break-action, single-loader gun to fire it.

Fighting the masked magician—Lina—wasn’t necessary. In fact, it was pointless. He’d hoped his words would end it, but…

It was a bad move—it had the opposite effect. The blue eyes behind the mask shone with a piercing light.

After returning the integrated handgun CAD without a slide or barrel to her waist holster, her right hand came out with, instead of a gun, a small throwing dagger.

The accepted notion was that USNA magicians favored integrated armament CADs. This dagger was doubtless no mere blade—it might even be some kind of armament device.

Her short boots kicked off the soft ground. The speed with which she did this wasn’t possibly hers naturally, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t extraordinary, either.

Tatsuya removed a lead ball from his pocket and flicked it.

It cut through the wind, soaring toward Lina’s right hand—and penetrated it.

No blood spattered.

He hadn’t shot through flesh. The ball had passed through an illusion.

Lina continued, waving her arm. The dagger launched from a point about a yard away from its location as seen by Tatsuya’s eyes.

Jumping to the side to dodge, his eyes followed its trajectory. Beyond where he watched, the illusion readied a second throwing dagger.

His physical eyes perceived where the girl in the small mask was, and his mind’s eye knew it was an empty projection.

What a pain! he cursed to himself. Knowing the theory and experiencing it for real were different; he was out of his element.

The factors described by the information bodies making up the Parade spell were color, shape, sound, heat, and position. Same as Yakumo’s illusion art, Cocoon.

Whereas Cocoon projected color, shape, sound, and heat that were exactly the same as those of the real thing but in a different location, Lina’s Parade spell placed more emphasis on projecting a different color and a different shape. That didn’t mean it had cut out the part about camouflaging location, though. This magic program, which Kudou had come up with and Lina had inherited, was equipped with the same position-blurring function.

Right now, Lina was diverting the calculation power from camouflaging her color and shape into camouflaging her position, trying not to let Tatsuya grasp her real body’s coordinates. And if he couldn’t identify those, he couldn’t use magic on her. It would essentially disable magic that specified coordinates based on visual data. The difference between Parade and illusion arts lay in how the first could falsify one’s coordinates even in the information dimension.

In order to apply magic to something, you had to project a magic program onto the target object’s eidos. For example, in order to use a file on a computer, you had to specify a path for the directory it was stored in, then use an execute command. But checking the path all the time was a pain, so shortcuts were widely used. If you switched a shortcut with a fake one whose path linked to a dummy file with no contents, you would get an error when you tried to change the file, even though you went through the same process.

Applying this concept to the magical activation process, in most cases, one’s visual information was the shortcut icon, and auditory and heat-sensing information would fit into that. Fooling the visual information with an illusion would cause magic not to activate, but if the main body and illusion overlapped, you could usually still arrive at the main body’s eidos using the coordinate information. In this case, despite the lag in his activation time, his spells were still working fine.

Even if you projected an illusion somewhere other than the main body, you could also still search for the main body’s eidos using the relationship between the illusion and body as a key. But with the coordinates camouflaged and a dummy of the main body prepared in the information dimension, any magic program he fired using his sensory information as a shortcut would end up not doing anything.

That was the system behind the anti-magic spell Parade.

Which meant that in order to break it, he had to either:

—destroy the illusion, and then find and attack the main body before a new illusion was formed…

—or locate the main body’s coordinates without relying on his senses, instead going through the Idea, to attack.

The former option wasn’t going very well at the moment. Lina was already quick at triggering magic. Her activation speed was enough to rival Miyuki’s. She’d probably practiced this spell in particular. Her reactivation time was monstrous.

Tatsuya was able to use the latter method, too. But it was a kind of gamble, shifting most of his awareness from the physical dimensions to the information one while under physical attack.

…No other choice.

As he dodged the fifth dagger, he made up his mind. He wouldn’t try to find the main body and attack before a new illusion formed, nor would he directly search for her eidos in the Idea. There was a third option.

He took out of his pocket a cylindrical can small enough to fit in his hand.

And then he tossed it up.

For a moment, Lina gave him a dubious expression. But when she realized what the “can” was, it opened her eyes.

A small shrapnel grenade.

“Je—”

Maybe she wanted to say Jesus, but she couldn’t finish. Not wasting the time to finish even her short word, she expanded a physical barrier.

Constant deceleration.

Meanwhile, with flash casting, Tatsuya triggered an area-of-effect spell that decelerated object movement speeds at a fixed rate. It was impossible for a weak barrier created by a virtual magic region to completely stop the shrapnel grenade he’d thrown. A halting spell that brought speeds to zero might buckle under the shrapnel’s kinetic energy, its event alteration failing.

That was why he used constant deceleration. Even so, decelerating an object to a small fraction of its original speed, like a hundredth or a thousandth, was too much for him.

Weighing the specs of the weapon he’d prepared for himself against the interfering power of his virtual magic region, he cast the spell at a level where it would just barely work.

However, constant deceleration wouldn’t completely halt the shrapnel; the spell wasn’t for that purpose in the first place. He turned half to the side, then knelt on one knee, moving his arm to protect his shoulder, flank, thighs, and head. The minute fragments tore into it.

Few of them penetrated the artificial leather fabric with simple bulletproofing on it, but more than ten still dug lightly into his leg and arm.

Self-repair spell: auto-starting.

Kill self-repair process.

Willing the automatically activated self-repairing to stop, he immediately lunged for Lina, who had blocked the shrapnel grenade completely with her own barrier. When she tried to form another physical barrier, he nullified it with a dismantling spell. Caught completely off guard, even she couldn’t resist any longer.

“…Tatsuya, you’re crazy.”

Lina was on the ground facing up, and Tatsuya was on top of her, holding her down. Pinned down, she sounded appalled. But a smile appeared on her lips, which weren’t hidden by the mask. It was a relaxed gesture, but it wasn’t hard to realize it was feigned.

“I didn’t know where you were. Standard tactics say to smoke you out with a nondirectional attack, right?”

“Most would call that an indiscriminate attack.”

“Interpret it that way if you wish. Unfortunately, I have no skill with manipulating area-of-effect magic. Anyway, I knew for certain you’d be able to defend against it, so give me a break.”

“You got hurt, though. Doesn’t seem worth it.”

“I had to in order to capture you.”

“You wanted to capture me? If you wanted to whisper sweet nothings into my ear, I would have preferred a more romantic approach.”

Tatsuya looked into the blue eyes behind the mask and smirked. After bringing her hands over her head, one on top of the other, he used one of his own to suppress her opened palm.

When he brought his empty hand toward her mask, her shoulders gave a jerk. A finger on her thickly gloved left hand tried to move, but Tatsuya pushed it open by force.

“…Tatsuya, that hurts.”

“Unfortunately for you, I know how that CAD works. Anyway…”

Tatsuya’s hand went for the mask.

Lina closed her eyes and turned away. Her cover was long ago blown—did she still not want to expose her face? He couldn’t understand the mentality, but it wasn’t like he was tearing off her clothes or anything, so he had no reason to stop.

“Activate, Dancing Blaze!”

As his hand touched her mask, Lina shouted, her face still turned.

The five daggers she’d already thrown returned at her voice and attacked him.

A voice-activated armament device… It keeps a delayed-activation spell at the ready, not an activation sequence? Interesting, he thought to himself, sensing the daggers quickly converging on him.

Two went for his right arm, reaching for the mask, one for his right shoulder, one for his left arm, and one for his legs.

None of them would hit a vital spot.

Come to think of it, Lina’s attacks were all to disable me, not kill me… As he considered this, the daggers had already reached his body.

And the instant they made contact, they all turned into fine sand and scattered.

“Corrosion… No, dismantling…?” muttered Lina, overcome with surprise, turning her averted eyes back to him.

Ignoring her, Tatsuya got back to peeling the mask off.

She shook her head fiercely to resist him, but she couldn’t shake off his hand.

“You’ll regret this, Tatsuya!”

“I’ve let the target I nearly captured escape. I already regret this plenty.”

As he and Lina were struggling about, the parasite had made a clean getaway. Though he had insurance for it, he couldn’t deny a feeling of vain effort. Lina was chasing the vampire, too, which made Tatsuya wonder what she stood to gain by helping her escape.

Neither her teary-eyed glare nor her desperate warnings were reason for Tatsuya to hesitate. He unlatched the receivers on her ears, left and then right. As he’d thought, the mask doubled as an information terminal.

He gently removed the surprisingly hard mask. Even Tatsuya, who was used to pretty girls, nearly breathed a sigh at her exposed beauty.

Lina bit her lip and glared sharply at him.

A moment later, a scream that could tear silk exited her lips.

It was too sudden. Tatsuya’s eyes turned into dots.

He didn’t loosen his grip on her hands despite his shock, thanks to the extremely thorough training he’d received from Kazuma, a man of poor character.

“Somebody! Somebody help me!”

It was exactly the shout of a girl seeking rescue from a rapist.

And the perpetrator—well, Tatsuya—stared at her realistic performance with a dreary look.

Then, as though others had been waiting for Lina’s scream signal, he heard footsteps running toward them. Figures wearing navy-blue bulletproof vests with white lines made of reflective material on them over equally navy-blue uniforms, one from each of the four compass directions, were approaching. The insignia shining on the fronts of their caps was an informal crest of a cherry blossom.

As Tatsuya grabbed Lina’s left arm and dragged her up, he tore the glove off her left hand. With the sensation of cords splitting and cracking, Lina’s white hand became visible.

“Raise your hands and turn around!” shouted the police officer—no, the man dressed as a police officer—who ran to them from the front, pointing a gun at him.

Tatsuya went around behind Lina and shoved her toward the man.

Lina yelped and flew into his chest.

Just as the uniformed man put his arms up to stop her…

…Tatsuya jumped over Lina’s head and landed on the man’s shoulder.

Like kicking a soccer ball, he rammed his foot into his face.

As he fell down without a peep, Tatsuya launched off his shoulder and broke out of the fake police encirclement.

“…What if that had been a real police officer?” asked Lina in disbelief.

However:

“I’d prefer it if you dropped the charade, Angie Sirius,” he answered.

The air audibly froze.

“If they’re cooperating with you, it makes no difference whether they’re the real thing or not. A hundred years ago, maybe, but current Japanese criminal law applies to foreign aggression crimes even if no martial force was used. If you thought people disguised as the cops would intimidate me, you couldn’t be more wrong. I’d like it if you stopped underestimating the resolve of Japanese magicians.”

The three remaining fakes looked at the expression of Lina for instructions—their commander, Angie Sirius.

After sighing, she turned to Tatsuya and gave a light, polite bow. “I apologize for my rudeness. I did indeed underestimate you. Hearing and seeing are entirely different. As another magician, I am sorry.”

Then, she put her feet together, straightened her spine, and brought her right hand up horizontally to her forehead. Even without a military cap, it was an unmistakable soldier salute.

Before, she had acted as a single magician—from now on, it would be as the commander of the USNA Army’s magician forces.

That was how Tatsuya understood her display of intent.

“I am Major Angelina Sirius, commander of the Stars magician unit, under the direct command of the USNA Army’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Angie Sirius is the name I use when transformed like I was before, so please continue to call me Lina. Now, then—”

Her bloodlust, previously tucked away inside the sugar coating called courtesy, was now on full display, and it washed over Tatsuya.

“Now that you know my face and name, Tatsuya, the Stars must get rid of you. It is unfortunate—there were plenty of ways to play around the facts if I still had my mask.”

“So that’s what you meant by regretting this.” With the murderous intent blowing on him like a wind, Tatsuya let a fearless smile show.

“If you had at least allowed yourself to be deceived and captured, we could have finished without needing to kill you.”

“Well, excuse me. I seem to have wasted the consideration you were kind enough to show me.”

“No, you needn’t apologize. We need to kill you because of our own selfish reasons. You may feel free to resist.”

One of the fake police officers handed her a combat knife for her right hand and a midsize pistol for her left.

A sword-shaped armament device and a handgun-shaped specialized CAD.

Tatsuya drew his own from inside his clothes.

“This really is a shame, Tatsuya. I’d started to like you quite a bit, you know.”

Lina raised her left hand and pointed her CAD at Tatsuya.

Tatsuya raised his right hand and pointed his CAD at Lina.

Lina’s subordinates surrounded Tatsuya to the back and either side.

“…Good-bye, Tatsuya.”

“I won’t let you do that, Lina!”

Suddenly, an imperious voice rattled the freezing midwinter air.

Shock appeared in Lina’s azure eyes as she turned to look toward where it had come from.

As if trying to cover their commander’s exposed opening, her three subordinates jumped Tatsuya at once.

They swung big combat knives. Extending from their blades in a straight line were virtual regions—Atomic Dividers.

Tatsuya pulled his CAD’s trigger. Their virtual regions to reverse intermolecular binding force vanished against the casters’ wills.

Slipping past the combat knives, now mere blades, Tatsuya escaped their encirclement. The subordinate he passed on the way fell down, clutching his stomach. Blood started to gush between his fingers.

With a single swing of Tatsuya’s blood-soaked left hand, a spatter of blood flew toward Lina’s goons.

One of them stopped moving, and one of them charged him.

Tatsuya pointed his right hand at Lina.

Her left hand was aimed at the person who had announced her intervention—Miyuki.

The activation sequence Lina expanded shattered under Tatsuya’s Program Dispersion.

A wall of cold that would freeze anyone who stepped into it appeared in front of Tatsuya to block the man rushing him.

His feet came to an abrupt stop.

A figure crept up behind him.

The last officer was already on the ground.

“Gee, Tatsuya, that was quite the pickle.”

Yakumo, who had instantly disabled two Stars members, brought his face, looking as detached as ever, close to Tatsuya’s.

I can’t stay the same as ever, thought Tatsuya, reflecting on his own inexperience. “Such an innocent lie, Master,” he said. The constant admiration was getting on his nerves, so he replied sarcastically. “I know you were hiding until your chance came.”

Lina’s eyes widened.

Miyuki took a position in front of her, CAD at the ready. Tatsuya’s right hand was pointed straight at Lina, too. And even though Yakumo’s gaze was on Tatsuya, his still had Lina completely in his view.

Lina was now the one surrounded.

“Well, what’s the fuss? It looks like you had some things to ask, too,” she said.

“Huh? Is that true, Brother?”

Miyuki turned around, expression dismayed. It meant taking her eyes off Lina, but with Tatsuya and Yakumo ramping up the pressure on her, she couldn’t make a move.

Miyuki noticed her own failure right away, though, and hurriedly returned her gaze to Lina.

“You had us surround her on purpose so that we could get information from her… I was utterly ignorant of your idea, and I made an assertive move. Forgive me, Brother.”

With her eyes on Lina, Miyuki asked Tatsuya’s forgiveness in a voice full of sorrow.

“No, I was definitely in danger, so you made the right decision. You don’t have to apologize. In fact, I should be grateful. Thank you, Miyuki.”

“Brother…I’m not worthy of such words…” his sister muttered, her expression intoxicated. Still, whenever Miyuki apologized to Tatsuya, this was the predictable development. Or maybe it was a kind of ritual, or beauty of form. Considering her eyes still hadn’t left Lina, though, she seemed to have a bare minimum of reason left.

“And we can just ask anything we want now anyway,” he said, both to Miyuki and to let Lina hear it. He pronounced every sound, every syllable distinctly, making Lina sure that he was talking to her, too.

“…You plan to use force to interrogate me?” asked Lina, the sound of grating teeth accompanying her voice.

“Aren’t interrogations usually done with force?” he replied—an indirect yes.

“But it’s one against three! That’s unfair!” she cried, a full-on frustrated criticism.

“Unfair?” cut in Miyuki, astonished. “How many people did you get just to surround my brother?”

“Now, don’t say that,” said Tatsuya, trying to soothe her before her astonishment changed to anger. “Fair is a superficial term, used to maintain your advantage when you’re already in an advantageous position, and unfair is a convenient word to bring an opponent to the negotiating table when you’re in a disadvantageous one. Tactically speaking, trying to skirt around having to fight when you know your strength isn’t enough is correct. It’s all over if you take her seriously, Miyuki.”

“I see. I understand how it is.”

What Tatsuya had said was altogether too blunt, but it seemed to calm Miyuki down, at least.

“Superficial? Convenient?”

At the same time, though, it seemed to rile Lina up.

Incidentally, Yakumo was busy trying to muffle laughter.

“Japanese people are the last people I want to hear that from! You feel no shame taking advantage of insincere words!”

“Aren’t you a quarter Japanese, too?”

“…!”

“The Parade you were using was developed in Japan, and you can use it because you have Kudou blood—the blood of a Japanese person, right? Besides, double standards are a specialty of the white establishment. I’ve never heard of people who don’t take advantage of insincerity.”

Lina glared at him without a word, her white skin flushing red. But since she was both glaring and not speaking, it probably meant she didn’t know what to say to that.

As he took her stare with a (mean) grin, he realized the bloodthirsty mood in the air had thinned and let out a dry laugh.

“…What’s so funny?” demanded Lina.

“Nothing. Just thinking that if we interrogated you like this, you’d get all stiff-necked and wouldn’t tell us anything.”

“You could at least call it stubborn!”

She really is fluent in Japanese if she knew what that metaphor meant, thought Tatsuya, impressed—even though it really didn’t matter.

“The other groups will probably get here soon, too…”

“Hey! Are you listening to me?”

It was best to ignore what didn’t matter.

“Lina, let’s make a fair trade. If one against three is cheating, then why not have a one-on-one contest? If you win, I’ll let you go for today. In exchange, if I win, you’ll give me honest answers to my questions. How does that sound?”

Even if Lina won, they knew her identity. If Tatsuya won, she’d have to tell him everything. The match itself was one-on-one, but it was certainly not an equitable deal.

“…Fine.”

“Wait!”

After Lina racked her brains over it, she accepted the conditions, and at the same time, Miyuki interrupted with an objection.

Tatsuya’s and Lina’s eyes went to Miyuki.

“Brother, would you approve of leaving the duel with Lina to me?”

“Miyuki, why would you—”

“Remember this, Lina. I will not forgive anyone who tries to hurt my brother. I consider you a rival and a friend, but I can never forgive you for attempting to take his life, even if it wasn’t sincere. I will personally teach you your sin.”

Miyuki’s eyes glowed with a light that was 100 percent serious. Lina tried to laugh off her deep attachment, but it only ended up being a grimace.

“Be assured, I will not kill you.”

Miyuki’s words declared she was certain of her victory.

“Hmm… Miyuki, you think you can beat me? The one granted the name of Sirius?!”

Upon hearing her challenger’s words, Lina’s chest began to blaze with her competitive spirit.

The two knockout beauties stared each other down.

“All right. Miyuki, I’ll leave it to you. Is that all right with you, Lina?”

“Thank you very much, Brother.”

“Fine by me. If I lose, I’ll tell you everything. Not that it’s possible, of course!”

Consent was present. The curtain was about to slide open on the splendid match between two unparalleled beauties.

Miyuki and the others knew her specialties were cooling magic and freezing magic.

But their true identities were vibration canceling and movement canceling; she wasn’t making use of any snow fairies or ice magic. And, of course, unlike in clichéd young adult fantasy novels, she wasn’t impervious to the cold through the protection of any spirits.

What needs to be said, regardless, is this:

What’s cold is cold.

There was no way the motorcycle’s tandem seat wouldn’t be cold when she sat down on it in this midwinter’s night.

So…

It would make sense for me to cling to him…since it’s so cold.

Tightly gripping Tatsuya’s waist, pressing her cheek to his back, bringing her chest all the way up, she repeated her excuse like a mantra.

—And there would be nobody butting in and asking if she needed such excuses at this point.

Yakumo spared a glance behind him to the headlights of the motorbike following just behind them and gave a smile that anyone would describe as bad-natured.

From his position, he couldn’t completely see Miyuki in the tandem seat, as she was behind Tatsuya, but he could see quite clearly her posture, state, and expression. The emotions the siblings had for each other were supremely interesting to Yakumo.

A moment after his lips curled up, and he felt a heightening of tension from next to him. Someone seemed to have misinterpreted his grin as something stranger.

“You don’t need to be defensive. If you keep your promise, we won’t harm you in any way.”

“…You expect me to believe you in my current position?” replied Lina in a hard voice, eyes fixed straight ahead. No, perhaps it was less hard and more drawn back.

“Well, I can’t blame you for feeling that way.”

She was sitting deeply back in the rear seat, with Yakumo on one side and his disciple on the other in such a way that anyone who knew her position would think of them as an escort. She’d just learned the true power of the men sitting to either side, which made her resentment even stronger.

Yakumo had knocked out two of the Stars’ elite members in an instant.

The other had suddenly been standing behind her without any of them realizing it, wearing black clothes—a ninja.

The man holding the steering wheel had no apparent openings for her to exploit, either.

She didn’t think they could beat her, even three on one, but she wasn’t confident she’d emerge unscathed, either.

“But it’s all right. You can trust us.”

Whether he’d simply sensed her nervousness or also guessed that it was rooted in hostility and caution, Yakumo’s tone was exceedingly laid-back.

For Lina, that made him even creepier.

“I’m not interested in the conflict between you and Tatsuya. What I am interested in is the proper handing down of secrets. Like I said earlier, all I want from you is not to reveal the art given to you by Kudou. Handing it down to someone who has no right to it is not handing it down properly.”

“…You don’t have national interests in mind, either?”

“Nope.”

“The peace of the world? The future of human civilization?”

“Not interested. I’m a recluse.”

“But you’re a magician, too!”

Yakumo was suggesting something that Lina’s perspective on the world considered impossible—something that couldn’t be allowed to happen. That made it all the more unbelievable.

“I’m a shinobi. Not a magician,” replied Yakumo, voice gentle—a firm negative.

“…Ninjutsu users are a kind of magician, aren’t they?”

“Just because you can use magic doesn’t mean you have to become a magician.”

She knew the meaning of the words he used.

She understood them.

But none of what Yakumo was saying made sense to her.

“It’s like how just because you’re a magician, you don’t automatically have the duty to serve your country.”

It didn’t make sense, but for some reason, she couldn’t argue, either.

Their sedan parked on a dry riverbed in the middle of nowhere.

Lina wasn’t acquainted with the place, so she didn’t know where it was. Considering how long they’d been driving, they would be in the next prefecture over, but she was surprised there was a place like this in the suburbs of the Tokyo megalopolis.

She couldn’t see any light at all.

The sedan’s headlights went out, and when the motorcycle’s behind them did as well, it made their stage virtually pitch-black.

There was no moon; only the stars guided their way through the dark as Tatsuya and Miyuki walked over.

Suddenly, Lina was struck by an indescribable unease.

They hadn’t confiscated her CAD, but she didn’t have her transmitter or comm unit on her. They hadn’t even done a body check; they’d made good guesses as to all her possessions. All she could do was obediently hand them over.

They said they’d return them later, but she didn’t have any way to inform her allies back home of the situation. The observation satellite would be following her location, but it was ninjutsu users recognized for their illusion magic who had brought her here. They might even be able to fool the military-grade observation satellite’s high-resolution cameras.

This means they’re releasing me somewhere I don’t even know, doesn’t it? At worst, I could be assassinated. Her fingers closed tightly around her clothes where her CAD was stored. If it comes to that, I’ll have to use my trump card.

“I can imagine what you’re thinking, but we’ll keep our promise, so don’t worry.”

It was all Lina could manage not to yelp. She couldn’t help but give a jolt at the sudden address. When she turned around, she saw Tatsuya. The starlight was enough for her to make out his expression as he came closer. He was smiling.

“We’re just going to ask some questions. Once we’ve heard what we want to know, we’ll drive you to the station.”

From her point of view, it was an extremely exasperating grin.

“I’ll only tell you if you beat me.” Lina’s voice was naturally sharp.

“Of course. We’ll keep that promise, too.”

His iron mask didn’t shake even a little, which got on her nerves even more, but she knew blowing her stack now would only make her position worse.

She clenched her teeth, then aimed her sharp stare behind Tatsuya—at Miyuki.

Eyes swelling with fight looked back at her. She was already raring to go.

“Now, then… It may not please you, Lina, but Master will be the referee. I say referee, but he’ll just determine who won or lost. He won’t break up the match or interfere in the middle.”

“I knew from the start everyone here is an enemy. It’s fine by me.”

“How sportsmanlike of you.”

Tatsuya let her remark slide off him.

Her frustration had gotten worse, but she suddenly felt like she’d calmed down.

“Unworthy though I may be, I, Yakumo Kokonoe, will preside over this duel. Victory will be when one person surrenders or is incapacitated. No killing. It’ll leave a grudge.”

“I understand. That will be enough.”

“I’ll end it before that happens.”

Miyuki nodded quietly, while Lina gave a spirited acknowledgment.

Their attitudes contrasted, but each had the same unwavering confidence in her own victory.

The situation was fit to explode at a moment’s notice.

“All right. Let’s get started.”

“Master, please wait a moment.”

But there was one man here who couldn’t read the mood, who would purposely throw a wet blanket over them. Ignoring the strained looks from Yakumo and Lina, Tatsuya walked over to his sister.

He came within two steps of her, but he didn’t stop walking.

“Umm, Brother?”

She was confused and unable to read his intent, but he didn’t answer.

He took one more step up to her.

As though it were natural, he still didn’t stop.

Then, when he was at zero distance from her, close enough to reach out and embrace her, he came to a stop…

…and did just that.

“I-I-I, umm—”

He wrapped a hand all the way around her waist as she passed the blushing stage and fell into a panic. Even though she was just embracing him until a few moments ago—but that would have been a third party’s impression. For her, hugging someone and suddenly being hugged were two completely different things.

Tatsuya’s other hand slid in behind her head.

At this point, Miyuki couldn’t even make a sound.

His fingers combed through his sister’s hair,

he brought her face, which had forgotten to resist, to his mouth,

and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

When he released her from the embrace, he saw that Miyuki’s eyes were wide.

Not in an embarrassed way—she was simply surprised.

“This… Why…?”

“I had it shown to me before. It might not be perfect, but I remember how. It’ll only have a temporary effect, but I’ll return your control. Fight to your heart’s content.”

“…I will!”

Miyuki nodded to her brother’s words and gave a strong smile that was no longer intoxicated.

“I’m sorry for the wait, Master,” said Tatsuya. Next to Yakumo, Lina was making a face like she’d eaten too much and had heartburn. “I made you wait, too, Lina… If you’re not feeling well, I’ll give you a moment.”

“It’s your fault… As such, I’ll be quite fine,” she replied as meanly as she could while Tatsuya feigned ignorance (at least, Lina thought it was feigned), then turned back to Miyuki.

Miyuki hadn’t followed on Tatsuya’s heels. She didn’t seem to be planning on close combat.

Based on her observations thus far, Lina judged that she was a typical magician who wasn’t strong at martial arts. The easiest type for Sirius, executor of treacherous magicians, to deal with.

I’ll end it in one attack!

They still hadn’t given the signal to start, but she had no intention of waiting for something so trivial. They hadn’t agreed to start on a signal.

She would close the distance with self-acceleration, disable Miyuki’s magic with Information Boost, and disable the girl herself with physical combat.

Then, while Tatsuya and the others were preoccupied with Miyuki’s defeat, she would use a high-speed movement spell to escape.

That was Lina’s plan.

But it would end with Lina giving a mute yelp.

An instant before she could use her magic, a gust laced with hail attacked her.

She immediately made a long jump horizontally, dodging the cold torrent of tightly packed hail. When she looked up, a blizzard blew at her, aiming for her side. By manipulating the air’s density and creating a wall of vacuum to shield herself, she managed to endure the attack.

“I suppose it’ll take more than that.”

Someone’s muttering floated to her on the night wind.

Lina clenched her back teeth hard.

In terms of magic activation speed, Lina had Miyuki beat.

But if Miyuki had taken the lead, she must have started hers before Lina did.

And those two consecutive attacks had emphasized speed by lowering their power.

In two senses, Lina felt disgraced.

Her plan to take advantage of Miyuki’s naïveté had instead made her slip up.

Miyuki had thought she could defeat Lina even with low-power attacks—and as a matter of fact, her first nearly got her.

But now it’s my turn!

There was an empty moment, probably so Miyuki could take her down for certain with a stronger attack. But Lina considered that a fatal mistake as she executed two spells in parallel: Information Boost and a self-accelerating spell.

Her self-acceleration spell decreased both gravity and inertia simultaneously, and with it, Lina charged toward Miyuki’s side. Her right hand was closed around a decorative button she’d ripped off her jacket.

They’d confiscated her gun, but this would be enough to disable a high school girl.

When she made it within five yards, a sudden flash of instinct stopped her in her tracks.

A strong wind suddenly whipped up and pulled on her. She dug her feet into the ground to resist it.

She fought against the sucking force by using a stasis spell. From that position, she simultaneously activated a movement spell on her button. Bypassing physics’ normal rate of acceleration, it was given a speed of three hundred kilometers per hour. But it lost speed not even a meter out and fell to the ground.

Miyuki’s senses had a lock on Lina as she charged forward with blinding speed.

She couldn’t extract data directly from the Idea like Tatsuya, but she could perceive the traces of magic-induced event alterations. Any magician, albeit at different levels, could do it; and if it was something a magician could do, Miyuki could do it at a world-class level.

Self-acceleration magic applied an event alteration to oneself. Therefore, by following the traces of that alteration in real time, she could locate the caster’s position. The skill took advantage of self-acceleration magic’s flaw; Tatsuya had taught it to her.

So far, it was going according to plan. Her attempt to provoke Lina by purposely muttering a significant phrase—“I suppose it’ll take more than that”—had gotten results.

Her real attack was this next spell.

Deceleration Zone.

The spell itself was relatively commonplace. Used widely both in Japan and abroad, it decelerated object movement within a target area.

But when Miyuki used the spell, the deceleration affected gaseous molecules, too.

The movement velocity of gas particles was directly correlated with the gas’s pressure. To be more precise (but still approximately), the pressure of a gaseous body in an enclosed space was proportional to the square of the gas particles’ movement speed. If the particle movement was forcibly decelerated, the pressure in the zone would drop, and it would draw in air from the surroundings according to the pressure gradient.

Suddenly and strongly.

Not only the air, but people and objects, too.

If someone who was sucked in didn’t have the resistance to defeat this spell, it would deplete their movement speed and they’d be trapped inside the zone.

If someone who was sucked in did have enough resistance to nullify the Deceleration Zone spell, the decelerated gas particles would regain their movement speed, and the gas would expand with pressure in accordance with the amount of molecules—in other words, explode.

Normally, if one didn’t have enough magic power to stop a bullet, this spell, which could only decrease the power of projectile weapons, was the next best thing. But in the hands of someone with as much magic power as Miyuki, it was an antipersonnel anti-magic spell with a contingency plan.

Lina, however, fought the current’s force of suction and dug in her heels.

She fired something with a movement spell—a button?

A bit of resin only given an initial velocity would never penetrate Miyuki’s Deceleration Zone, but by her shooting down such a slipshod projectile weapon, Lina doubtless knew what kind of spell she was using now.

In that case!

Tatsuya told her almost daily that the attacker always needed to think two or three steps ahead. If her plan to finish Lina by drawing her into the Deceleration Zone failed, she simply had to finish her outside that zone.

Maintaining the two-layered wall she’d made on the inside, Miyuki canceled the zone on the outside.

The gas particles, forced into a false deceleration, regained their original movement speed.

The air that had been compressed into a small area had its pressure released, became an explosive blast, and assaulted Lina.

The large-scale event alteration she’d sensed suddenly vanished.

Obeying her training and instincts, Lina flung herself to the ground and covered herself with a barrier against physical objects.

A blast stormed atop the shield. When the lift from the high-speed current threatened to pick both her shield and her up off the ground, she managed to endure with a multiactivation of an inertial increasing spell. As she lay on her belly, she peeled her eyes for a chance—no, an opening—to counterattack.

She wasn’t about to casually (?) wait for an opportunity.

Until now, all the initiative had been in Miyuki’s hands.

She was just a high school student, and Lina was commander of the world’s strongest force.

She felt pride at that fact, of course, but above that, she felt a mental pressure—things were only getting worse.

In any case, unless she could get in even a small counterattack, she’d be overcome.

Excluding very tough defensive magic, even magical combat favored the attacker over the defender. That was the theory.

Lina felt the wind pressure weakening. The blast of wind had come from the cancellation of magic, so it made sense that the wind would stop once all the pressurized air was released.

Lina’s right hand gripped her combat knife.

They’d taken her handgun but not this knife, which was for activating Atomic Divider.

The previous Sirius had developed this magical armament device, now a trump card for the Stars.

The spell extended a virtual region, and it needed enough influence to overcome the enemy magician’s.

And it couldn’t be just barely more—it had to be an entire rank higher.

But at the very least…

I should be able to distract her with it!

Still on the ground, she scattered daggers around so that Miyuki couldn’t see.

She canceled her inertial amplification, then got up as fast as she could.

Atomic Divider.

Up on one knee, she swung her right hand’s knife across.

The virtual region extended almost at the same time. She felt a strong force of influence unleashed between them that was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

While the virtual region was still forming, the all-encompassing influence stamped it out.

She knew Miyuki would block it. Just as calculated, you might say.

“Dancing Blaze!”

Before seeing her Atomic Divider get nullified, she fired her next spell.

The daggers she’d secretly spread about floated up and flew off at a blinding speed.

Traveling in an arc a hairbreadth away from the ground, they evaded the space Miyuki controlled.

Four blades attacking you from the sides and behind in the darkness. Block that if you can!

Feeling magic-tinged objects racing her way, Miyuki canceled her currently activated attack spell and switched to perimeter defense magic.

Daggers, flying around the space to attack her, lost their flight energy and fell to the ground.

Significantly more difficult than perceiving each individual object to defend, and even more difficult than barrier magic that specified a direction—omnidirectional, indiscriminate defensive magic. But right now, Miyuki could use it without a problem.

She could stop even attacks saturated with Lina’s—Sirius’s—magic power.

If she were in her usual state, with some of her control diverted to Tatsuya’s seal, she would have a hard time defending against this attack.

She might not have even been able to control such an elaborate spell in the first place.

If she’d challenged Lina to a duel alone, she would have lost… Miyuki mentally offered a prayer of thanks.

It’s because you’re watching, Brother… I won’t lose. I cannot lose!

Seeing her technical, complicated surprise attack beaten by sheer force made both a fear and a fighting spirit bubble up in Lina’s heart at once.

And that heartburn-inducingly sweet scene from before suddenly flashed through her mind.

She could only see it as them making light of this battle.

But at the time, Tatsuya had whispered something to her.

Come to think of it, he’d already broken her Dancing Blaze spell. He’d simultaneously dismantled all five daggers simultaneously striking at him.

It wasn’t any molecular force neutralization spell she knew about, but the result was that he, by some method, had broken their molecular bonds.

But that wasn’t the crucial issue.

It was that he’d dealt with several flying objects coming from different directions all at once.

She thought to herself that it wasn’t only Miyuki’s power that blocked her attack.

Yes… He wouldn’t interfere, but he would have a word. Suits me fine!

Miyuki thought:

I absolutely cannot lose.

Lina thought:

I’ll crush her with everything I have.

And both of them called out at once.

“Miyuki!” “Lina!”

“This is it!”

Space froze.

Space boiled.

Their magic power painted over the world, and the two worlds clashed.

A world of ice and snow, glittering like a crystal.

A world of fire and lightning, sparkling with electricity.

The air-freezing arctic hell, Niflheim.

The air-burning incandescent hell, Muspelheim.

One area-of-effect spell decelerated the vibration of gas particles, not only freezing water vapor and carbon dioxide, but also liquefying nitrogen.

One area-of-effect spell dismantled the gas particles into plasma, then further separated positive ions and electrons to create a high-energy electromagnetic field.

The cold reverted the heated plasma to gas, and the heated plasma returned the frozen air to normal.

The two clashing forces shed a curtain of aurora on the ground.

A flickering, overlapping dance of polar lights.

It was truly a wondrous spectacle.

Enough to make one forget that death waited just on the other side.

Tatsuya, his finger riding his CAD’s trigger, observed the scene carefully. If one of them lost control of her spell, he would immediately erase the spell itself.

He expected that disabling their two spells at once would be tough, but he was a magician specializing in dismantling and regeneration. He was determined to see this recklessness through to the end.

Amid the dancing aurora, the clash of ice and snow with fire and lightning seemed like it would last forever. But before even a minute had passed, the trend became clear.

The cold expanded, and the plasma diminished.

Miyuki was, originally, a magician specializing in magic that brought about large-scale event alterations over a wide area.

On the other hand, Lina was a magician who focused her power on individual objects and phenomena, causing acute event alterations.

This clash had begun with Miyuki in the advantageous position.

Adding to that, this was Lina’s third battle in a row, after the vampire and Tatsuya.

She may not have been aware of her symptoms, but the exhaustion had accumulated.

And now this duel format had put her opponent at an advantage over her.

Miyuki and Lina’s match wouldn’t be decided by a difference in magic power, but by who could retain her calm rationality for longer.

“Ugh…!”

Lina must have known that herself; a frustrated grunt escaped her lips.

And she reached behind her, pulling out her armament device again. But a multicast in this situation was, no matter how talented a magician she was, tantamount to suicide.

“That’s enough, both of you!” shouted Tatsuya, pulling his CAD’s trigger.

His Program Dispersion wiped out both Miyuki’s Niflheim and Lina’s Muspelheim at the same time.

The cold air mixing drastically with the flames and lightning, a wind that would cause burns and frostbite at once blew around violently. Tatsuya had prepared himself for the inevitable searing pain, but the storm, its fang’s fiery blaze and extreme cold, hit an invisible wall right in front of him.

“Brother! What have you done?!”

Her face pale, Miyuki ran over to him.

Lina watched him, dumbstruck.

Protecting themselves from the mere aftereffects, the heat and cold waves, would have been a piece of cake no matter how tired they were. But it wasn’t something Tatsuya could manage. He knew his own talents well. At times like these, he envied the ability to use normal magic.

“Dear me… Tatsuya, what will we do about this?”

And he didn’t know how the man had protected himself, but in any case, the unharmed Yakumo spoke to him with affected shock in his voice— Well, the disciples he’d brought who were behind him were covered in dirt and mud. They must have dived into the earth to escape. The doton art, most likely.

“Master…what do you mean?”

Tatsuya knew now how he’d escaped the chill and the high heat, but he didn’t understand the question, so he asked honestly, or rather out of reflex.

This time, Yakumo gave him an astonished look that seemed more sincere. “Well, I mean…didn’t you decide that whoever surrendered or was incapacitated first would lose? You were the one who suggested this duel in the first place. Why did you go and break it up like that?”

He literally had no words.

If he hadn’t done what he had, it would have broken the “no killing” rule, so he didn’t regret the act of intervening itself.

But this match was just an excuse to settle the situation to begin with.

In actuality, the question of how to deal with Lina was extremely troublesome.

As an official soldier, her rights as a captive were guaranteed. He wouldn’t have needed to care had her identity still been under wraps, but Lina had already told him she was the Stars commander and a major in the USNA Army. And he’d known that previously anyway, so he couldn’t ignore her rights as a captive.

Even if she didn’t have any during a legal engagement, if she was conducting actual military affairs, she had rights as a prisoner.

And before that, Tatsuya and the others were civilians. They couldn’t take Lina, a soldier, prisoner.

He could if he displayed his connection with the Independent Magic Battalion, but unfortunately, he couldn’t reveal something that confidential.

If they interrogated or confined her without proper authority, it would only give the USNA a political excuse. And execution was out of the question.

Of course, Lina’s side would face criticism for attacking civilians as well, but unfortunately, the rights guaranteed to a magician as a civilian were severely limited. In terms of justice in public international law, Tatsuya and the others had grim prospects.

But that didn’t mean they could set her free without doing anything, especially considering the future. How would he resolve the situation…? Tatsuya felt as though it was giving him a headache.

“We’ll say it’s my loss.”

But he didn’t have to worry for long. Rescue found him from an unexpected place.

“At that rate, I would have been defeated. If I’d diverted my capacity to other magic, Miyuki’s spell would have swallowed me whole and I might have lost my life. I would have needed a few months in the hospital at the very least.”

Lina looked at Tatsuya and Miyuki and admitted her own defeat in a sportsmanlike manner.

“Miyuki, I lost. Tatsuya, I don’t intend to bother you with disgraceful struggling.”

But it was too soon to breathe a sigh of relief at the situation resolving itself.

“I promise I’ll answer anything you ask me. However…”

“However what?”

“But my answers will be yes or no. If I can’t answer a question like that, then I won’t. You changed the conditions Miyuki and I agreed on by spoiling our match, so I hope you don’t mind me changing a small condition as well, Tatsuya.”

Lina had been beaten more soundly than he’d expected.

She gave a wonderful smile that you wouldn’t think a loser would give, and Tatsuya had no choice but to agree to the new terms.

(To be continued)